Howard Stern’s sidekick, Joseph “Joey Boots” Bassolino, was issued a criminal summons for taking photos of National Guardsman in New York’s Penn Station this past week. NYPD charged him with interfering with traffic.

“I was keeping my distance to not interfere,” said Bassolino, who goes around the city photographing and documenting “all the interesting things I see about the city.”

MTA spokesman Salvatore Arena said photography is allowed in the station, “but you are not allowed to pursue your subject in an harassing manner.”

In this scene, a cyclist gets ticketed for riding his bike on a Brooklyn sidewalk. A few neighbors rib the cyclist, the situation escalates, and one neighbor gets arrested for harassment, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

An officer in the van took issue with this particular bystander, telling him to “mind your own business.” “I wasn’t even talking to you!” the boisterous witness responded. And with that, the officers hopped out of the van and approached, demanding, “give me some I.D.!” “Get your hands out of my face,” the bystander responded. “I’m gonna issue you a summons right now,” the officer continued. “A summons for what?” the bystander demanded to know. A call for backup is made, and the witness recording the scene remarks “the NYPD is crazy.”

Like this:

Calling it a “curious phenomenon,” the New York Times is reporting that “dozens of men and women who have robbed, beaten, stabbed and shot at their fellow New Yorkers have done so while wearing Yankees caps or clothing.”

(This is sort of like when the Times tries to make a trend story out of three people they find feeling one way or doing a particular activity — like women who embrace their A-cup status.)

It’s a big joke. What do they expect from people in New York … green Celtics caps? I’m sure they’re wearing Yankees or Mets t-shirts, too, because guess what? People usually wear their hometown sports team gear.

I wonder if the NYPD will start unlawfully harassing Yankees cap wearers just like they do with photographers….

Like this:

This past weekend a camera guy came up against one of the NYPD’s craaaa-ziest cops. Or maybe he’s quite normal as the force goes?

It all happened at a raid at an underground club in Brooklyn where 10 people were arrested. The cop in the above video was none too happy about being filmed and told Vladimir Teichberg, among other things, that he’d go to jail (“for three days”) and get abused and raped if he didn’t stop.

Like this:

The New York Times’ Lens blog reports today on photographers’ rights, noting the case of photographer George Hahn, who was recently harassed by an undercover officer while taking a nighttime photo of the Javits Center in New York City. Hahn says that he was on a public sidewalk, but that didn’t stop the officer from barking out a gruff, pointed, “Can I help you?” (No, Officer, I usually prefer to work alone….)

There are terrorists and there are architecture enthusiasts. You’d think the NYPD would be able to distinguish between the two, wouldn’t you?

UPDATE: CBS-TV reports that Officer Chu is a “bona fide legend in certain parts of Queens, and not in a good way” for repeatedly abusing his position. See video of the encounter here.

A Queens Councilman decided to practice a little vigilantism and got a $150 parking ticket for his efforts. As the Daily News reports, Dan Halloran (R-Queens) was alarmed when he saw traffic cop Daniel Chu driving through stop signs — with lights on — while talking on his cell phone. So Halloran followed the car as it ran more stop signs and eventually illegally parked in front of a Dunkin’ Donuts.

Like a good citizen journalist, Halloran snapped photos of the officer’s car, and that’s when Chu returned from DD and was none too happy. Even Halloran identifying himself as a city councilman did nothing to tame Chu’s hubris.

“He said, ‘Oh yeah? You want to take pictures of me? I’m going to give you a ticket,'” Halloran recalled.

Chu then wrote Halloran a $165 ticket for blocking the crosswalk. Halloran is contesting the ticket and asking the NYPD to look into all of Officer Chu’s previously written tickets.